Review: Grandbrothers is the musical meeting of pianist and producer, who have created something magical on Open

Grandbrothers are German pianist Erol Sarp and Swiss engineer and sound adventurer Lukas Vogel, who have linked up to to embark to create music both timeless and alien, immediate and unknowable. It may sound like a heady mess, but if anything, the music on Open is perfectly attuned to its title: warm and welcoming. Nothing to be found here sounds too much like anything before it, but it doesn't seek to challenge so much as to introduce itself to the neighborhood.

Grandbrothers have finally come into their own. Not so much in a musical sense - the duo essentially arrived fully-formed - but this feels like the salvo that may finally gain them a new level of attention. Artists flirting with classical have always risked being pegged as niche, and despite gaining a sizable following, they just haven't quite seemed to break through. Open has the potential to change all that.

A nearly perfect union, German pianist Erol Sarp linked up with Swiss engineer and sound adventurer Lukas Vogel to embark to create music both timeless and alien, immediate and unknowable. It may sound like a heady mess, but if anything, the music on Open is perfectly attuned to its title: warm and welcoming. Nothing to be found here sounds too much like anything before it, but it doesn't seek to challenge so much as to introduce itself to the neighbourhood.

Sarp himself is invested in the new, despite being a player of what could be considered the old. He seeks to create new paths – forge new enthusiasm – in and for piano playing, with little interest or care for storied traditions. Vogel, for his part, live samples his playing, adding effects and making beats as the music organically arrives, the two intertwining and creating together, all at once. It makes for moments both intimate and astounding, such as on the rising and falling softness versus crashing emotion of ‘Honey’.

With the grand swelling of the music to be found here, it's easy to forget what in part makes it so majestic. Whatever movements and ideas Vogel adds to it, this is all the product of a sole instrument: Srap's grand piano. For those of us all too invested in the constant slew of bigger, louder, more flashy presentations every week, it's a true pleasure to get lost in such a graceful, deceptively simple world. Open is a true treat. Come on in, the room is still warm.